Sarah Friend, clickmine, online game, blockchain-based, 2017. A co-commission by Furtherfield and NEoN Digital Arts Festival, 2017.
Nominated by Charlotte Frost, Furtherfield.
clickmine is a blockchain based clicker game. With each click, you can “mine” a virtual plot of land: each click mints a new cryptocurrency coin on the Ethereum network, as well as allowing the player to buy new power-ups. But what is a token, anyway? As wealth is created, it is also destroyed.
clickmine is a critical look at the tumultuous, hyperinflatory, financial landscape of cryptocurrencies. It also speculates on the historicity of currencies: we can tell much about an ancient culture from excavating coins and other tokens of assigned value. How, then, will historians of the future excavate cryptocurrencies, and what conclusions will they draw about the way we generate and define value?
Friend (UK) is an artist and software engineer, specializing in blockchain and the p2p web.